Progstreaming started July 5, 2011 out of an idea to stream entire albums. Although Spotify and Bandcamp - especially the latter a main influence - already started in 2008, they were far from household names, and the idea to let people hear an entire album for free was unheard of. Soon, the site became very popular, with streams of new albums coming a couple of times a week. We've had many, many bands and artists over the years, some of them owing a part of the current popularity thanks to Progstreaming. We even had a sub-site for a while - Progstreaming Classic - for reissues, and older stuff. At the time, we were convinced in that letting people hear the music, they would become a fan, and eventually buy the album. Progstreaming owes a great deal of debt to
Andrew Dubber, whose '
The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online' - although written in 2007 - still holds a lot thoughts and insights that are current.
But despite all that, things changed. Soon, labels began to see streaming as a means of income, instead of way of promotion, what Progstreaming offered. Some labels therefore decided not to participate in our streaming posibilities. To offer those bands and artists still a means of promotion, without tempering with their business model, we invented yet another site,
Progstreaming Extended, which doesn't have any streaming itself, but just offers widgets - also known as embeds, legally seen as 'links' - but are presented in a different way: on release date. Of course, we deliberately made sure Progstreaming and Progstreaming Extended looked exactly alike, so there in viewers eyes (or rather: ears) it didn't really matter whether it had our own player playing the music, especially not if a band has its Bandcamp-presence. Features on Extended never go away. Why should they? It's all links anyway. Hence our gigantic
Funny enough, Progstreaming itself is still really attracting crowds. The concept is still the same: give people a chance to listen to the album as a whole, before they decide to buy it, or add it to their playlist on Spotify. We're constantly remodelling our concept as time moves on. For self-made and digital-only releases we now have
Progstreaming Acces, which is a genuine streaming site like Progstreaming, but also on release date, like Extended. Also, we're responsible for
Progressive Chart, a monthly interactive Prog Top 25, in the old days associated with Dutch webzine Progwereld, but since a while on an international name gathering thousands of votes a month. Finally, we try also to please people outside progrock with our 'All-interesting-serious-music-genres' blog
All Streaming.

We don't care how people listen, as long as they DO listen. We want people to go on an expedition, and discover new music daily, whether it's brand new or 50 years old. That's what we willl keep on doing in years to come, as long as people on this planet produce progressive rock. And they do!

How can I get my album streaming at Progstreaming?

Please e-mail us at progstreaming @g mail.com. We often only need a digital file in 320 kB/s, but if you want to send us a CD or LP, we'll gladly give you our address. The decision whether it's been streamed on Progstreaming or Progstreaming Access will be done by us, and influences are if it's readily available on CD/LP/downloads and how people can obtain your album. For Progstreaming Extended and All Streaming we don't need your permission, as explained above, but we do like your support, or notification on a releases. Therefore, feel free to add our e-mail to your newsletter.

Is Progstreaming legal?

Yes. Please read our
disclaimer and
privacy statement for more information. Spotify's term of use is
here. Bandcamp's term of use is
here. Deezer's term of use is
here. Please notify us about any inconsistencies you might find.

About the functionality of the embedded players

Our own player and the Bandcamp-widget play as soon as you click the play button. The Spotify-widget however will first open your Spotify, and the music will start playing, but you won't hear it, unless you refresh. It's recommended to open Spotify first, and then click one of our widgets. It will then play like a charm. The Deezer-widget will be automatically set to listen to 30'' (30 seconds); once listening to 30 seconds, it will show a log-in. After that, no matter where you listen on Progstreaming, all Deezer-widgets run smoothly. Both Spotify and Deezer also offer premium subscriptions, which are free from advertisement. Progstreaming is in no way responsible for bad functioning widgets. Progstreaming has no association with either Spotify, Deezer or Bandcamp. Our disclaimer and privacy statement applies on all Progstreaming website and its social media.

Credits

The Progstreaming theme was originally based on "New Golden Gray 1.8.3" Theme by William Pramana and Samuel T. Trassare > http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/new-golden-gray2011: Website and modified theme by Wouter van Dijk & Robbert Nijhoff.
2012: Website and modified theme by Ron Kraaijkamp (2rsweb.nl) to use progstreaming.com also on Apple's iPhone, iTouch and iPad. Also enhanced website maintenance.
2013: Created progstreamingclassic.com to give artists and listeners the opportunity to promote and listen to previous released work. Idea Markwin Meeuws, created by Ron Kraaijkamp (2rsweb.nl).
2014 -2015: Added more streaming sites for different types of music.

About supported environments

Progstreaming runs either in a flash enabled or HTML5 browser. Please see note under the table below.
Progstreaming has been tested on the following OS's en browsers:

On Android tablets and/or TV Sticks sometimes it is worth checking whether a desktop version works better for you. This can normally be set through the options.
This may also be valid for Chrome on IOS.